Trigger Happy
the champion now of human imagination and sexuality, defeats the tyrannical god and casts him forever into the abyss. For the moment, man’s inheritance is safe.
For what had Prometheus done in the first place? He had given humans a power-up.
Burn this
The gift of fire. Like most children, I used to find battery-powered flashlights fascinating toys. I’d smuggle a flashlight into bed and turn it on after lights out, beaming whirling patterns onto the ceiling for what seemed like hours. The quality of light just before the batteries ran out was my favorite: a barely visible golden specter, loopingly scrawling its message in a hieroglyphic tongue. It was a mystery. The fiery glow of a tungsten filament powered by a couple of chunks of lead and acid somehow translated into this sensuous show.
The ancient Chinese, we are told, first invented fireworks—made fire a plaything. For centuries, fireeaters traveled with circuses, making dragonish art from the destructive gift. To this day they give a thrillingly organic flavor even to such celebrations of technology-dependent entertainment as Manumission,
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